Don't let "Crash the Tea Party" discredit the tea party movement. Follow the instructions in this article, capture pictures or video of any offensive signs or behavior, and email them to tpcrashers@pjtv.com.

It’s Tax Day, and with it, Tea Party Day. As we publicizedhere, and others covered elsewhere, there is an effort to discredit and disgrace the tea party demonstrations called “Crash the Tea Party” — I’m not going to link it, if you want it, find it yourselves — by, as they put it :

Whenever possible, we will act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them. We will also use the inside information that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans

This, of course, isn’t the only group that has tried this little bit of guerrilla theater. Lyndon LaRouche’s organization has also been known to try it. But we now know that this is being directly supported by at least some Democratic Party operatives.

What’s more, in anything with as many people involved as the tea party movement, there will undoubtedly be a few misguided souls who think racist signs, white supremacist signs, or wild conspiracy theories really will help the tea party cause.

It’s their right to say what they like, but we refuse to be associated with them. We declare that racism, white supremacism, and other things from simply offensive to flat-out nutty don’t belong in tea party events.

WE REJECT RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA, AND ANY EXTREME AND OFFENSIVE SIGNS OR STATEMENTS

As part of this, PJ Media and PJTV will be providing a special website to document and repudiate anything that appears to fit with the tea party crashers’ agenda. We invite all attendees at any of the Tea Party events to photograph or video any signs that would call the tea party demonstrations into disrepute. In particular, look for:

Deliberately misspelling words in signs

Using racist slurs in signs or verbally

Using homophobic slurs in signs or verbally

Using exaggerated imagery, such as showing Obama as Hitler

Generally behaving in a hostile and disreputable manner that reflects poorly on the demonstration

Capture these images and send them to us at tpcrashers@pjtv.com. We will publicize them on PJTV and here at PJ Media.

Here are a list of do’s and don’t's as a guide.

Things to do:

DO get photos or video of any offensive signs or behavior — racist signs, signs connecting O’s administration to Nazis, anti-Semitic signs, signs calling for violence — and send them to tpcrashers@pjtv.com.

DO inform them calmly and civilly that the signs and behavior are unwelcome.

DO get pictures including the faces of people holding and standing with the offensive signs, and context around them for identification.

DO have “Infiltrator” and “Brought to you by…” signs, and stay close to the offensive signs so it’s hard for the legacy media to single out the offensive signs as being somehow representative of the tea party demonstration.

DO watch any representatives of the mainstream media. Make sure that they don’t have the opportunity to isolate an offensive sign. Record video of the media observing the crowd (don’t forget how powerful it was when amateur video revealed the bias of a CNN interviewer).

DO capture video of people shouting offensive words or slogans. Loudly — but calmly and civilly — challenge them for the misbehavior, and get that on video, so it’s clear it was denounced at the time.

DO assume people with their faces covered, especially with a balaclava or ski mask, are not your friends.

DO report any harassment or assaults to the police, and capture that report on video as well, if possible. (I learned this at the Democratic Convention in 2008: after Michelle Malkin was mobbed and I was assaulted, I reported it to the police, who said, “Shall I call an ambulance?” I eventually got an apology from the Denver PD, but it would have been a much bigger thing for them had we had video. And don’t forget, Alex Jones really is a consummate ass.)

DO KEEP YOUR COOL. Keep calm. Be nice. These people are agents provocateurs, and the worst thing you can do to them is not be provoked.

Things not to do:

DO NOT confront offensive protesters any more strongly than to tell them they’re unwelcome.

DO NOT make any attempt to force people to leave or do anything they don’t want to do.

DO NOT make any concerted attempt to figure out if someone is a “real” tea partier or a plant. If they’re being offensive, get their pictures and send them in. No one with a racist sign is a friend of the tea party movement, no matter how much they say they are on the tea party’s side.

Charlie Martin writes on science, health, culture and technology for PJ Media. Follow his 13 week diet and exercise experiment on Facebook and at PJ Lifestyle

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43 Comments, 26 Threads

1.
Elize Nayden

I appreciate your Alex Jones description, there should be no guide to proper public behavior without it!

Good, good, good, good move, Charlie –
The Dems and the left are seriously frightened by the Tea Party, and MSM help notwithstanding, they are out there, intent on ruining the movement –

The left tries and will use all disruption and sabotaging political meetings techniques applied by the Bolshevicks, then by their commie plants in Eastern Europe, in order to neutralize opposition and inflict their tyranny -

But they can be kept at bay, and your recommendations are very timely -

I have a suggestion: Tea Partiers should carry huge signs that read:AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS GOVERNMENT RACISM AGAINST WHITES AND ASIANS!,or: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION:THE REAL RACISM. Expose the hypocrisy of the race-baiting scum,while highlighting their support for this governmnet outrage,and putting them on the defensive.

Affirmative Action is ironically racist against Blacks and Hispanics as well because it’s akin to telling a minority Black/Hispanic person that they are ethnically intellectually inferior to Whites/Asians/Jews and cannot learn or work as hard for the same education and must have it ‘dumbed down’ for them which is patently racist.

Of course the liberal apes blew it when advertising their plans. Actually they have handed a gift to the tea partiers, when some well intentioned conservative goes slightly over the top in rhetoric, just blame it on the leftist morons who gave away their scheme.
Thanks lefties. Are you ready for the VAT, keep smiling.

I disagree,johnt,with this line of reasoning. I think Charlie Martin makes it clear what most folks think-that dispicable behaviour is dispicable and is as unwelcome coming from those purporting to support the Tea party.

Steve: Dissent is fine. We are protecting ourselves from lefties, like yourself, who actually do not want dissent from YOUR agenda and must use tactics like infiltration and thuggery in order to discredit it. For instance the Orwellian nature of your posting is exactly what your side uses: taking our dissent and turning it upside down.

Abject silliness on your part. It is merely a quide for the uninitiated/amateur protester who has most likely never encountered any sort of confrontation. These are suggestions to help anyone at a rally protect both their personal being and reputation.

“….as in make sure no dissent is allowed from the (Tea) Party line.”

Firstly, there is no such thing as a (Tea) Party line. And, pray tell, who is the enforcer ? Folks who attend Tea Parties are only loosely organized or bound together by two or three objections concerning which direction the country is being taken.

Eliot, I’m not sure just where I recommended despicable behavior. My post & my language is restricted to this site and not to anything “despicable” that Tea partiers ought to do. As we must expect biased coverage from the media it is appropriate that the Tea Party has the right to point out the planned and not to bright advance announcement of an organized disruption and smear of them.

The suggestion that this be pointed out to a dishonest and hopelessly biased media, which searches for anything to be used against them, is a useful defensive tool, should they wish to use it.
Your use of despicable is overwrought, but let me not dissuade you from an exercise in indignation and unnecessary moralizing. I hope you feel better for doing it.

If that is all you were saying, then fine. However, if conservatives or Tea Partyers do something not so above board then we all own it.If it isn’t to our credit, then we don’t want it and crashers can’t make up the difference.

I am not being overwrought at all. I thought is was despicable when comparisons and depictions of GWB as Hitler were made. Not only doesn’t GWB come anywhere near Hitler’s record, it then diminishes Hitler’s unique evilness in history.Crazy people put together those sorts of correlations.

In addition, it is quite despicable(as well as profoundly ignorant or hateful) to harbour racist sentiments. We are now in the 21st Century and everyone has been given a chance to catch up. There are no excuses left. Again, crashers can’t provide us with an excuse.

Finally,no, I will not be happy until we are able to resolve these issues we are challenged with. How could anyone be truly happy in an atmoshere like this ?

Polite, nice “please and thank-yous” to these ass-hats will be ignored by them, and by the MSM. The operatives know their allies in the Media happily participate in the sham, by capturing them as “typical” TP people, while polite, honest, thoughtful requests by decent folks that are the majority, will never be seen or reported on.

On the contrary, if you see some really despicable racist/extremist plants/operatives, why not simply surround the idiots and chant “you’re not one of us!…you’re not one of us!” until they feel (for their own safety if need be) compelled to leave.

I’m sure the many, many Military Vets in attendence, who served bravely with all colors and kinds of Patriots, would love to “convince” these turds it would be in their best interests to find another party to crash.

Violent facist/commie/union thugs and their kind thrive on the belief “nice folks” are afraid to physically confront them. Like all bullies, they rely on small implied token acts of POTENTIAL violence, to create fear.

Take that away, and you’ll see what weak little punkass cowards they really are. They expect you to retreat and “tolerate”….so dont.

A video taped scene of Tea Partiers self policing, shaming, or if need be asswhooping these un-American scumbags out of the area (liberal plants or not!)will do more to enhance their overall image than anything else I can think of. Especially if its so large and obvious a spectacle, that the MSM cant ignore/edit it away.

For Charlie, I do protest money wasted in earmarks; a prime one being the Alaskan “bridge to nowhere.” I just don’t protest on this particular blog.

For blotto: I’m a life long traditional conservative Republican (“traditional” = fiscal conservative & social libertarian). You should not assume that every conservative is marching in lock-step with Tea Partiers nor should you assume that anyone disagreeing with the (Tea) Party line is automatically a leftie.

for Mark the Great re Pentagon spending being wasted: early last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study showing 66 of 94 weapons procurement programs were running a collective $267 billion over budget. You can see for yourself on the GAO web site. You can see more about what various generals and admirals, some retired and some on active duty, think about certain programs like the F-22 (www.cdi.org).

Re being hypocritical, where were all the Tea Partiers protesting Bush/Cheney deficits? Funny how all these protests started when Obama got in. I’m not looking to defend him; just looking for consistency and fair play.

This is not in sync with your comment#7. To quote you in that comment, ‘ Charlie’s strategy sounds suspiciously like Communist style strategy, as in make sure no dissent is allowed from the (Tea) Party line.’. This nonsense that the reacting to the threat of agent provocateurs by exposing them, which is what we are really talking about here, is somehow stifling counter arguments is the same line that is being handed out on lefty sites.

Call yourself what you will. But if you’re holding the same position as the more fascist members of the left, you will be cast into the same bin by readers who immediately recognize that position for what it is.

As far as the military programs go, you won’t get any argument from me that there is waste. I worked that sector for years and still do as a consultant on occasion. However, the waste does not equate to what the programs individually or collectively run over budget. Keep in mind that military systems tend to be blue sky efforts, not leveraging existing technology. They are cutting edge by definition and intent in order to meet system, functional, performance, and mission requirements. Some programs are cut off when it becomes apparent they will never meet those requirements. And that sometimes happens after a lot of money is spent and after a long period of being over budget and nowhere close to milestones.

And be very careful about how you interpret various generals and admirals criticizing programs. They all have their rathers based on their own mission requirements and their own bugdets constrictions.

ie: When an Army general criticizes the F22, assume that at least some of that criticism comes from the fact that he’d rather see some or all of the F22 money go to the JSF program. The F22 is a high altitude air superiority platform with little or no ground support capability. The JSF a low level fighter with a solid ground support capability.

“Re being hypocritical, where were all the Tea Partiers protesting Bush/Cheney deficits? Funny how all these protests started when Obama got in. I’m not looking to defend him; just looking for consistency and fair play.”

As soon as you use the term ‘Bush/Cheney’ deficit, you lose all credibility. This is, to use your term ‘lefty’, a kneejerk lefty response that exposes a woeful ignorance of the workings of government. (no one is using the term ‘Obama/Biden’ deficit). Again, you will be cast into the same bin by readers who immediately recognize that nonsense for what it is.

I think what you need to look for is an understanding of the genesis of the Tea Party. They are not against Obama. They are against fiscally irresponsibility and transfer of wealth by fiat by the current government. Obama, the Democratic leadership, many but not all Democrats in office, and some Republicans (Bob Bennett in Utah for example) are all responsible and the Tea Partiers know it.

“Re being hypocritical, where were all the Tea Partiers protesting Bush/Cheney deficits?”

The Tea Partiers avoided the polls in 2006 and 2008–because they were disgusted with the RINO agenda–a fact made plain on the right side of the blogosphere, on talk radio and even, occasionally, on FOX.

And I know this because I was arguing with them–telling them that this would happen, telling them that the worst Republican is better than the best Democrat.

Charlie, your list concerns me. I don’t think we have the ability to censor ourselves in a way the MSM will accept–first, remember that they will take offense to terms like ‘black hole’ and words like ‘niggardly’–second, I have little doubt that they will refrain from making things up.

I think we should say the things that need to be said, with all the rancor and force that they need to be said with and not worry that the MSM will read whatever motive they want into our signs and statements.

We cannot win this by trying to aquiesce to their purported sensibilities–they will simply take advantage of it.

As far as crashers go, have ‘infiltrator’ signs and have ways to seperate the crashers from the group.

Hell, I don’t for a moment doubt that people in the MSM will make things up. But as Bob Owens noted elsewhere in PJM, if we have as few potential infiltrators as we’ve seen — I think we got maybe a half-dozen signs that actually appeared to be an attempt to join the demonstrations with something offensive, and a lot of those were LaRouche people with LaRouche openly on their signs — there can’t have been a lot of them. So let them make things up, and challenge them to explain where and how they found them.

This is interesting, because I saw during the 2008 campaign in Los Angeles several groups of LaRouche guys working for Obama’s campaign (westside and downtown, business area) -
They are inconfoundable, there is a Scientology air about them, and I thought at that time that they were part of a personnel lease of sorts to the “hope ‘n change” offensive -

Now appears that there is a deeper connection between these two operations -

Eliot, I suspect your problem lies in both clarity of thought and a propensity for excessive gaseous effusions. May I point out to you that a conservative, which I know I am but now harbor doubts you are, ought not to believe in collective guilt. I refer to your doozy,”we all own it”. I trust a temporary lapse of modesty and an urge to grandiosity carried you away, but only momentarily. Spare me, don’t try to explain.

Overwrought, the possibility looms even larger now than before. Your following three paras are totally irrelevant to my response and your initial lecture to me, and bespeak an excitation as well that suggests a need for a dose of aspirin. “Hitler”, “racist sentiment”,??
What has that got to do with the T P people or me for that matter. Calm down before you fall off your soap box. But if I need a sermon I’ll get in touch.
By any chance are you a regular reader of the NY Times? Just wondering.
Enough & goodbye.

Note that Pleasanton sits in a nexus that ought to have been a big draw given the humongous population, and it drew few people. The PARTY was the bust. The media doesn’t need to invent, or falsely marginalise.

Only 25% of Americans think the tea party speaks for all, whereas 84% of partiers seem to think this. 5% of partiers are democrat compared to 31% of the voter population. Tea parties are skewed both white, and older; 32% of pertiers are retired. 23% of all people get their news from FOX, whereas this skews to 63% for partiers. Tea party affiliation skews to the southeast and least likely to be northeastern. Tea party activists comprise 20% of the tea parties and 4% of Americans and view the GOP unfavourably. Meanwhile 18% of Americans are supporters of the tea party movement.

All of this jibes with criticisms made on this site that the far right (the type who would coin and seriously use the term RINO as being meaningful) are bound and determined to turn the GOP into an aging, mostly regional (southeastern) party.

It also jibes with criticism that conservative ranks are skewed to aging FOX viewers. Now, I don’t have anything against FOX, but then again I don’t really watch TV news. Younger types get their news from the intertubes whereas most of the tea party set get theirs from TV (mostly FOX.) This corroborates the aging nature (32% of partiers are retired, after all) and the news delivery schema is like icing on the cake. Without aging white conservatives, FOX wouldn’t be any better off than any of the rest of the news nets; TV news isn’t how the young gets their news, and this isn’t likely to change.

What I take from this is that my descriptions are accurate enough. The far right is a dying (literally) movement, and tea parties seem to be the last gasp. Ranks of tea partiers are in fact hyper-partisan.

Getting some understanding of the mainstream conservative in all his manifestations – republican, independent, and democrat – might help you distinguish between them and the far right. You would be less prone to flights of fancy like:

‘The far right is a dying (literally) movement, and tea parties seem to be the last gasp. Ranks of tea partiers are in fact hyper-partisan.’

This is an ignorant statement. Blockheaded actually, as it defies belief that any informed person thinking for themselves would make that statement given the history of the Tea Party from it’s genesis last April until now. If you believe there is any philosophical connection between the Tea Party and the far right, or the even more risible statement that Tea Partiers are hyper-partisan, you need to become informed and start thinking for yourself.

GL Alston-
Maybe only 25% of Americans (in the northeast?) believe the Tea party people speak for all, because of the negative message “astroturf” message our Dear Leaders and their media enablers who constanly deride them, in the heavily left leaning and predominantly northeastern, media markets?

Maybe they are, according to you, least likely to be “Northeastern” because the liberal government/media saturation of the “Northeast” is such that it DRIVES THE PRODUCTIVE PATRIOTIC CITIZENRY ELSEWHERE? such as I, who fled the People Republick of Jersey, decades ago?

And by “northest” I’m sure you only mean cities like, Philly, New York and Boston. Certainly not, well, actual geographicly NORTH and umm…relatively EASTERN places like, I dunno, the LIVE FREE OR DIE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE? Yeah, probably NOBODY from THERE is a Tea Party Member…And if they are, whacha expect from redneck “freedom & gun lovin” country folks who arent smooth enough to be swinging-cool metro city hipsters, like you and your MSM friends?

Fox news crushes all competition in viewership because they have A DIFFERENT MESSAGE than the lock step MSM, all of which are indistinguishable from eachother. Thats why Oboys Comm director said “we dont consider them a news organization”.

Viewer age, habits, or whatever else you claim is “skewing” their obvious leading position is actually funny…..Funny to watch you squirm and grasp at reasons to explain that which you cant fathom…..that lots of folks DONT think like you, OR like Obama and his crowd of adoring media…To quote your Idol, its “very amusing” to see you hyperventalate about how his falling fortunes are actually not what they appear to be….Like the people who tell me all that snow is further proof of global warming

I read your poll. In it’s entirety. Not just the numbers but the questions. And I understood both, unlike yourself, and make no assumptions, unlike yourself. The numbers do not speak for themselves as isolated snippets of information, but speak to the casting of the questions and the sample answering, as they do in all polls. All beside the point anyway. Nothing in that poll, questions or percentages, supports any assumption or declaration that the Tea Party is based on the far right, nor, how did you put it, ah yes, the ‘ranks of tea partiers are in fact hyper-partisan.’ Quite the opposite in fact. Which you would know had you read it in it’s entirety.

There are people who traditionally vote and describe themselves as democrats involved in the Tea Parties. How may of the counter protesters would you hazard traditionally vote and describe themselves as republican?

Which side is hyper-partisan?

‘The far right is this place, whose readers univerally support or attend tea parties.’

Again, you have no idea of the difference between the prevalent political positions held here and at the Tea Parties, and those of the far right. More to the moderate end of the conservative spectrum both here and at the Tea Parties. You would know this if you had independently arrived at an assessment of the Tea Parties and what they are about. I suspect that escapes you both because you realize that there is little or no distinction between any progressive and the far left and assume the same must be true of conservatives and the far right.

Just Passing Through — I suspect that escapes you both because you realize that there is little or no distinction between any progressive and the far left and assume the same must be true of conservatives and the far right.

You must have an utterly unique vision of what constitutes the far right, which I imagine must be some sort of theoretical position that doesn’t actually exist in real life.

Most republican voters are relatively centrist, and there’s a spectrum going right from there. At the right end are the people here, the ones you would call “conservatives,” and they represent a minority of the republican vote. Conservatives seem to imagine that they are mainstream GOP voters.

Most democrat voters are relatively centrist, and there’s a spectrum going left from there. At the left end… you get the picture. The ones you would refer to as socialists imagine themselves as mainstream democrat voters.

Just Passing Through: thank you for engaging in polite and civil dialogue. I think you missed my point when I opined that Mr. Martin’s article about opposing infiltrators sounds somewhat like Communist strategy. There is a strong tendency on political extremes to try & ensure that everyone toes the line, so to speak. “We are all in this together” is another way to put it. The more radical extremes go to greater degrees to enforce their ideology.

I think you err when you try to link my statements to the fascist left. Not so. There are multiple brands of what is termed as a conservative. As an example, some consider Beck & Hannity on Fox; and Rush; to be pretty far right. But, how does one then try to categorize Bill O’Reilly who is a believer that the climate is warming and just in the last week, successfully rebutted those who claim the President is not a US citizen because he wasn’t born here?

Referring to a “tea party movement” is also misleading. The Denver Post did an in-depth article earlier this year on the “movement” and found at least 6 distinct tea party groups here in Colorado with differing purposes and agendas. One such group called for a return to God as their primary goal, with cutting spending as secondary. Exploring their rhetoric further reveals them to be what some would call a “fundamentalist Christian” group, masquerading as a tea party.

More Colorado news this week revealed the Obama Administration deciding to keep the Orion & Constellation space programs, thus preserving some 3,000 jobs here. We all know the federal government is running a $1 trillion deficit this year. But I have yet to see or hear of any “tea party” protests about spending the $400 million. Same deal earlier this month when it was revealed the Pentagon is getting 5 more C-17 transport planes they neither want nor need. Cost is $1 billion. Again a jobs issue and again no tea party protests that I’ve heard of.

Regarding my comment about where were the tea party protesters during Bush/Cheney deficits, you replied that I lose all credibility when I bring up Bush/Cheney. Again not so; one is either against government waste regardless of which party holds the White House & Congress, or one isn’t.

Jack (#14) opines that the tea partiers avoided the polls in 2006 and 2008 because they were disgusted with the RINO agenda. One could rebut that by saying that some conservatives feel the tea partiers are CINOs (conservatives in name only) because they protest only when a Democrat is in the White House. But I’ll repeat: either one is against government waste across the board or one isn’t. For myself, I’m just as much opposed to Obama health care as I was opposed to Bush/Cheney prescription drug benefit as I was, and still am, opposed to Reagan’s space defense program, which has never worked as desired.

#20 ALSTONED:Polling data from CBS(Dan Rather Scandal),and the NY (Stalin’s Russia was wonderful,and EMINEN’S a genius)TIMES,are as reliable as Obama’s promise that he would not raise taxes on the middle class.More objective polling from Rassmussen, Zogby,et al clearly demonstrate that not only is the Tea Party movement mainstream,but that come November,the Obama will become a lame duck Chavez wannabe.What YOU will become is a question that only your methadone clinic can answer.

The fact that tea party “crashers” must infiltrate tea party demonstrations and use phony racist, homophobic signs in order to “expose” tea partiers for the racists they allegedly are kind of proves the tea party people are not racists and homophobes, doesn’t it?